October 3, 2004 - Here in Central Illinois the corn harvest is in full swing. Combines raise their clouds of harvest dust as the drying corn stalks are felled and stripped of their kernels of yellow gold. It will be the most expensive harvest ever as the price of diesel to fuel the combines, tractors and trucks moved past $2.00 a gallon. The weather service has issued a frost warning for tonight. Lows have been in the 40s. The heating season is upon us and the price of natural gas is rising with the price of crude oil. The analysts tell us that the reasons for the steep escalation are complex, related to the world situation and, to a large extent, beyond control.

While the consumer pays the price because there is no choice the energy companies are the beneficiaries. The record profits reported quarter after quarter by Exxon-Mobile, BP, Texaco and the rest come out of the pockets of ordinary people who drive their cars, heat their homes and cook their dinners. The bucks the energy moguls cart to the bank by the truck load come out of the pockets of folks who buy airplane tickets, who ride the trains and busses and go to the grocery stores to get a gallon of milk. Those are the people who fill up the barrel sized bonuses of the energy CEOs bigger now that the Bush tax cuts are kicking in.

Yes, the endless war in the Middle East is having an effect on the price of crude oil. The ongoing military operations of necessity demand oil that would otherwise be available to meet the domestic demands of the non-belligerent world. The dividend we were promised from the conquest of Iraq – an increased flow from the Iraqi reserves has not materialized despite the billions poured into Halliburton’s treasury.

Yes, the series of storms sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico has had a short term effect on the domestic supply of gasoline, natural gas and heating oil. Those natural and man-made disasters do not begin to justify the energy surcharge imposed on the whole of the economy. Every penny is passed on to the consumer with a markup to swell the energy industries bottom line.

As we near the end of the first four year period in half a century in which the Republican Party has held the reins of power in all three branches of the Federal Government literally nothing has been done to control energy costs or to conserve resources. The Republican Party has absolute control, absolute responsibility and has done absolutely nothing to resolve the emerging energy crisis.

Tax cuts and child allowances won’t pay for the cost of heating homes. An unemployed worker, whether he is counted or is “discouraged” and no longer counted can’t afford the privatized energy tax imposed on every consumer by the do nothing approach of this Republican administration to economic opportunism practiced by big oil. But then this administration is run by a Texas Wildcatter who made a career of attracting investors in what were ultimately dry holes. It is an administration that sees $50 a barrel not as a problem to be addressed but an opportunity to be seized. It does nothing, not because it doesn’t know what to do, but because nothing is precisely what it wants to do. The phone lines to OPEC remain silent. Big Oil is spared jawboning and continues to tap into the Federal Treasury to fill the strategic oil reserve at $50.00 a barrel. But for this administration the Barrel of Bucks never stops – especially not in the Oval Office.